Po­lice: New Gar­den of­fi­cer was nearly run over by West Grove man

A New Gar­den po­lice of­fi­cer was in­jured Sun­day night after he was nearly run over by a man try­ing to flee a crash scene, and who later phys­i­cally as­saulted the of­fi­cer.

Ac­cord­ing to New Gar­den po­lice, two uni­formed po­lice of­fi­cers re­sponded to the re­port of a col­li­sion on Gap New­port Pike near the in­ter­sec­tion of Crosson Lane at 7 p.m. Sun­day. As the of­fi­cers ap­proached, the driver of the car that struck an­other car re­port­edly at­tempted to flee, with smoke pour­ing from the en­gine com­part­ment, po­lice said.

One of the po­lice of­fi­cers ap­proached the ve­hi­cle, but the driver ac­cel­er­ated di­rectly into his path. The of­fi­cer had to jump out of the way and nar­rowly avoided be­ing struck. The ve­hi­cle then came to a stop, and a man later iden­ti­fied as Pe­dro Car­rilo-Lopez, 26, of West Grove, fled on foot. A sec­ond po­lice of­fi­cer chased Car­rilo-Lopez, who re­port­edly re­fused com­mands to stop run­ning.

Po­lice said the of­fi­cer caught up to Car­rilo-Lopez, who was tack­led to the ground. But po­lice said Car­rilo-Lopez al­legedly be­gan beat­ing the of­fi­cer with his hands and fists, and both even­tu­ally tum­bled down a 12-foot grassy em­bank­ment. Feel­ing his life in jeop­ardy, the of­fi­cer then pulled out his de­part­ment-is­sued Taser, which sub­dued Car­rilo-Lopez.

Po­lice learned dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, that the vic­tim driver of the other ve­hi­cle had slowed for traf­fic stopped ahead when he was rear-ended by the ve­hi­cle Car­rilo-Lopez was driv­ing. The vic­tim stated that the ve­hi­cle then backed up at a high rate of speed and struck a util­ity pole. The vic­tim stated that the ve­hi­cle then drove onto Crossan Lane be­fore po­lice ar­rived.

Po­lice trans­ported Car­rilo-Lopez to the po­lice sta­tion where he was pro­cessed and de­tained. On Oct. 24, Car­rilo-Lopez was ar­raigned be­fore Mag­is­te­rial Dis­trict Judge Matt Seavey on nu­mer­ous traf­fic and crim­i­nal re­lated of­fenses. Car­rilo-Lopez was re­manded to Ch­ester County Prison in lieu of $250,000 cash bail.

The in­jured po­lice of­fi­cer was treated and re­leased from Ch­ester County Hospi­tal.